Abstract

Selectivity of cascade redox reactions: the reduction of nitrobenzene to azoxybenzene and then to azobenzene and the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde and then to benzoic acid, is discovered to be tuneable via light irradiation over plasmonic gold photocatalysts. The representative photocatalyst of Au/CeO2 was characterized by TEM, EDX, UV–Vis and XPS to determine its morphology, elemental composition, photo absorptivity and oxidation state of gold. The catalytic test results demonstrate that the net contribution of light irradiation correlates with the ability of incident light to excite electrons and light absorption of catalysts. These findings may inspire peer researchers in developing new photocatalytic processes or in designing new photocatalysts for clean chemicals synthesis.